The Day the Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise, 1951) [RePoPo]

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The Day the Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise, 1951)

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Technical Information

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Type..................: Movie

Container file........: AVI

Video Format..........: H.264

Total Bitrate.........: 2402 Kbps

Bits/(Pixel*Frame)....: 0.299

Audio format..........: AC3 192 Kbps (DVD Untouched)

Audio Languages.......: English 1.0

Subtitles Ripped......: English, Spanish

Subtitles in Subpack..: English HoH, Spanish, French

Resolution............: 640x480

Aspect Ratio..........: 1.33:1

Original Aspect Ratio.: 1.37:1

Color.................: B&W

FPS...................: 23.976

Source................: NTSC DVD

Duration..............: 01:32:06

Genre.................: Sci-Fi

IMDb Rating...........: 8.1

Movie Information.....: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043456/




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Release Notes

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Synopsis by Hal Erickson

All of Washington, D.C., is thrown into a panic when an extraterrestrial

spacecraft lands near the White House. Out steps Klaatu (Michael Rennie, in a

role intended for Claude Rains), a handsome and soft-spoken interplanetary

traveler, whose "bodyguard" is Gort (Lock Martin), a huge robot who spews forth

laser-like death rays when danger threatens. After being wounded by an

overzealous soldier, Klaatu announces that he has a message of the gravest

importance for all humankind, which he will deliver only when all the leaders of

all nations will agree to meet with him. World politics being what they are in

1951, Klaatu's demands are turned down and he is ordered to remain in the

hospital, where his wounds are being tended. Klaatu escapes, taking refuge in a

boarding house, where he poses as one "Mr. Carpenter" (one of the film's many

parallels between Klaatu and Christ). There the benign alien gains the

confidence of a lovely widow (Patricia Neal) and her son, Bobby (Billy Gray),

neither of whom tumble to his other-worldly origins, and seeks out the gentleman

whom Bobby regards as "the smartest man in the world" -- an Einstein-like

scientist, Dr. Barnhardt (Sam Jaffe). The next day, at precisely 12 o'clock,

Klaatu arranges for the world to "stand still" -- he shuts down all electrical

power in the world, with the exception of essentials like hospitals and planes

in flight. Directed by Robert Wise, who edited Citizen Kane (1941) and The

Magnificent Ambersons (1942) for director Orson Welles before going on to direct

such major 1960s musicals as West Side Story (1961) and The Sound of Music

(1965), The Day the Earth Stood Still was based on the story Farewell to the

Master by Harry Bates.

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CAST

Michael Rennie - Klaatu

Patricia Neal - Helen Benson

Hugh Marlowe - Tom Stevens

Sam Jaffe - Dr. Barnhardt

Billy Gray - Bobby Benson

Frances Bavier - Mrs. Barley

Lock Martin - Gort

Drew Pearson - Himself

H.V. Kaltenborn - Himself

John Brown - Mr. Bradley

John Burton - British Radio MC

Wheaton Chambers - Jeweler

Frank Conroy - Harley

James Craven - Businessman

Marjorie Crossland - Hilda

Edith Evanson - Mrs. Crockett

Bobby Gray

Harry Harvey - Taxi Driver

Gil Herman - Government Agent

Harry Lauter - Platoon Leader

Freeman Lusk - Gen. Cutler

George Lynn - Col. Ryder

Tyler McVey - Brady

Dorothy Neumann - Barnhardt's Secretary

Robert Osterloh - Major White

House Peters, Jr. - MP Captain

Marshall Bradford - Newscaster

Fay Roope - Major General

James Seay - Government Man

Olan Soule - Mr. Krull

Stuart Whitman

Rush Williams - MP Sergeant

Carleton Young - Colonel



CREW

Robert Wise - Director

Julian Blaustein - Producer

Edmund H. North - Screenwriter

Leo Tover - Cinematographer

Bernard Herrmann - Composer (Music Score)

William H. Reynolds - Editor

Addison Hehr - Art Director

Lyle Wheeler - Art Director

Darryl F. Zanuck - Executive Producer

Claude E. Carpenter - Set Designer

Thomas K. Little - Set Designer

William Travilla - Costume Designer

Arthur L. Kirbach - Sound/Sound Designer

Harry M. Leonard - Sound/Sound Designer

Ben Nye, Sr. - Makeup

Fred Sersen - Special Effects

Harry Bates - Short Story Author

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TRIVIA (from IMDb)



* he role of Klaatu was originally intended for Claude Rains.



* The role of Gort was played by Lock Martin, the doorman from Grauman's

Chinese Theater, because he was extremely tall. However, he was unable to pick

up Helen because he was so weak and had to be aided by wires (in shots from the

back where he's carrying her, it's actually a lightweight dummy in his arms). He

also had difficulty with the heavy Gort suit and could only stay in it for about

a half-hour at a time.



* There were two Gort suits: one that laced up down the back for when he had

his front to the camera, another that laced up in the front for the shots of his

back.



* To give the appearance of seamlessness to the space ship, the crack around

the door was filled with putty, then painted over. When the door opened the

putty was torn apart, making the door seem to simply appear.



* During the early phases of preproduction, 20th Century Fox's studio chief

Darryl F. Zanuck suggested that Jack Palance could be used for the role of the

robot Gort.



* Patricia Neal has admitted in interviews that she was completely unaware

during the filming that the film would turn out so well and become one of the

great science-fiction classics of all time. She assumed it would be just another

one of the then-current and rather trashy flying saucer films that were popular

at the time, and she found it difficult to keep a straight face while saying her

lines.



* One of the reasons that Michael Rennie was cast as Klaatu was because he

was generally unknown to American audiences, and would be more readily accepted

as an "alien" than a more recognizable actor.



* In the original story, the robot, Gort, was the master - Klaatu was merely

one of a series of doubles, or maybe clones, that died after a short time.



* In the original story, "Farewell to the Master", the robot's name was

Gnut, not Gort.



* Doubles were used for Klaatu and Bobby in long shots of them walking

around Washington, DC. In reality, none of the principal cast ever went to

Washington, and the scenes with Klaatu and Bobby at the Lincoln Memorial and at

Arlington Cemetary were shot in front of background screens using footage shot

by the second unit crew in Washington, DC.



* All of the scenes of Helen Benson and Klaatu in the taxi also feature

footage from the second unit of Washington, DC as we see background vehicles in

the rear and side windows of the taxi.



* To depict the seamless closing of the ship and its ramp, they just

reversed the film of the shot of the ship's ramp and door appearing.



* The original choice of actor to play the alien visitor was Spencer Tracy.



* Darryl F. Zanuck was the one who first suggested Michael Rennie for the

part of Klaatu, having seen him perform on the London stage.



* Robert Wise was attracted to the project because of its overt

anti-military stance and also because he believed in UFOs.



* In line with the film's Christian allegory, Klaatu adopts the name

"Carpenter" when hiding out from the authorities. Robert Wise hadn't considered

the Christian implications until it was pointed out to him several years later.



* The spaceship was made of wood, wire and plaster of Paris.



* The Army refused to co-operate after reading the script. The National

Guard had no such qualms and gladly offered their co-operation.



* The screenplay was based on the story "Farewell to the Master" by Harry

Bates. It was originally published in the pulp magazine "Astounding

Science-Fiction."



* Three years after this was made, it was adapted for the "Lux Radio

Theatre". Michael Rennie and Billy Gray reprised their roles. Jean Peters played

the role of Helen.



* Bernard Herrmann's music for the film is scored for two theremins, pianos,

harps, different electrical organs, percussion, amplified solo strings and a

large brass section including four tubas.



* Although he was already signed to play the Einstein-like Professor

Barnhardt, the studio wanted to remove Sam Jaffe as a result of the political

witch hunts that were then underway. Producer Julian Blaustein appealed to

studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck. Zanuck allowed Jaffe to play the role, but it

would be Jaffe's last Hollywood film until the late 1950s.



* Bernard Herrmann used two Theremins to create his creepy score, one

pitched higher, the other lower, making this one of the first films to feature a

largely electronic score.



* Ranked #5 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films

in the genre "Sci-Fi" in June 2008.



* To increase the sense of reality, some of the most famous broadcast

journalists of the time were hired to do cameos as themselves. These included

Gabriel Heatter, H.V. Kaltenborn and Drew Pearson.



* Originally Klaatu's death and resurrection at the end of the movie was

meant to be permanent, reinforcing his God-like powers, but at the time the

Breen Office--the film industry's censors--didn't like the ending, suggesting it

was too left-wing, and insisted that director Robert Wise and writer Edmund H.

North put in the line, "That power is reserved for the Almighty Spirit". Both

Wise and North hated the line and thought it completely inappropriate--negating

the concept of Klaatu's race being all-knowing and all-powerful--but the studio

wouldn't back them up and they were forced to put it in.



* In the scene where Gort is seen carrying Klaatu's body (inside the ship),

Michael Rennie was actually sitting on a dolly out of camera angle to support

his weight during this brief scene, since Lock Martin (Gort) was unable to do so

himself.



* In the scenes of Gort carrying both Helen Benson and Klaatu up the ramp

and into the ship, lightweight look-alike dummies were used because of Lock

Martin's inability to actually carry either actor himself.



* One scene was cut from the movie before it was released. The original

script called for Klaatu to be taken to a police station by the government man

who came for him at the boarding house, not directly to Barnhart's home. At the

station, men were being dragged in from all over and questioned, and Klaatu

becomes upset when he sees how a man was beaten up by a crowd because they

thought he was the spaceman. The scene was cut because director Robert Wise

realized that the audience was interested in the Klaatu/ Barnhart meeting and

the scene at the police station was unnecessary, but on the DVD there are stills

from that deleted scene.



* Because the stationary Gort could not stand on the angled ramp, Lock

Martin had to wear the Gort suit in the background during the final sequence.

Martin, who was frail, had to wear the suit for so long that he began having

spasms in his arms. During Klaatu's final speech, Gort's arms can be seen moving

slightly.



* Harry Bates was paid a mere $500 by 20th Century-Fox for the rights to his

short story "Farewell to the Master".



* The name "Richard Carlson" - another leading sci-fi actor of the 1950s -

appears at the bottom of the glass door to Hugh Marlowe's office.



* Some reference works state that "Adventures of Superman" (1952) star

George Reeves appeared as a television news reporter with eyeglasses in one

sequence. This is not true. The actor playing the role bears no resemblance to

Reeves, and in a 1995 interview with Reeves biographer Jim Beaver, director

Robert Wise stated unequivocally that it is not Reeves in the role. It appears

that someone jumped to conclusions based on the image of a reporter wearing

glasses and thus resembling roughly the image of Superman alter-ego Clark Kent.

Reeves had nothing to do with the film in any capacity.



* The phrase "Klaatu barada nikto" has become a popular phrase among sci-fi

fans over the years and has been featured in other movies, such as Army of

Darkness (1992).



* The film was shot on the 20th Century-Fox back lot, which is now an

upscale office complex known as Century City.



* Writer Edmund H. North was a former army officer who wrote the script in

response to the proliferation of nuclear weapons during the Cold War.



* In 1951, 20th Century Fox theatrically distributed this with the short

film The Guest (1951).



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